A Happy Ending
by elphabaevitaeponine
Summary: The happy ending we all wanted for the Longbottom family, in the form of a one-shot taking place the morning after the Battle of Hogwarts. Details are a mix of book and movie world. Please leave reviews!


Author's Note: Hello, fellow fanfiction lovers! This is my first piece published on this website, so please be kind but honest in your reviews. It's a one-shot that takes place the morning after the Battle of Hogwarts. There's a quote in Deathly Hallows (see below) stating that everyone who had been Imperiused were coming back to themselves, and it got me thinking, what if other spells, and the effects of other spells cast by the Death Eaters, were also broken when those Death Eaters were killed? Mostly, though, I just really want a happy ending for Neville, who could never possibly get enough love. He's absolutely the best.

Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling

"Hear the news now creeping in from every quarter as the morning drew on: that **the** **Imperiused up and down the country had come back to themselves** , that Death Eaters were fleeing or else being captured, that the innocent of Azkaban were being released at that very moment, and that Kingsley Shacklebolt had been named temporary Minister of Magic."

-J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (emphasis mine)

Sharp taps ran out as the medi-witch walked briskly up the aisle of the Janus Thickey Ward. Though reeling with awe and joy at the news out of Hogwarts of You-Know-Who's demise, she had work to do. The patients must receive their morning check-ups, paperwork must be filed, and in record time, as her assistance would surely be needed to deal with the tragically large amount of new cases that would be pouring into St. Mungo's as the day wore on.

Seeing a man near the end of the aisle stirring in his bed, she bustled over. "No, no, you must lie down now, dear, and relax," the witch crooned. "There's a good- "

"Where am I?" The man's voice rasped, hoarse from years of no use.

The medi-witch's clipboard clattered to the floor.

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The woman opened her eyes to the same fluorescent lights and off-white ceiling she had stared at for the past sixteen years. But this morning, something was different. Something within herself… her thoughts. For the first time in over a decade and a half, her thoughts made sense.

 _Bellatrix... Frank…_

She sat up suddenly in the small bed and looked around frantically. "Frank!"

Her husband was sitting in an identical bed next to hers, looking confusedly at a witch in a crisp white uniform running away from them, screaming for someone to come quickly. The woman glanced around quickly. She appeared to be in some sort of medical facility – a hospital?

"Alice, dear, where are we? What happened?" Frank ran a shaking hand down the front of his hospital robe, just noticing it.

Alice turned to him. "It… it looks like St. Mungos. Bellatrix… Oh Merlin, Frank, I thought you were dead!"

Images were slowly slithering back into her brain… _her husband writhing beneath the Crucio spell… being hit again and again with pain worse than she ever could have imagined, worse even than when she gave birth to her precious baby boy… Neville? Where was Neville?... Her last_ _sight before she blacked out being her husband laying as still as death on the floor, her last thought of her precious son…_

"Neville!" Alice cried. "Frank, we've got to get Neville. They'll have gone after him and your mother!" She squinted at the sunlight streaming through a window, and remembered the darkness in which they were tortured. "It's been hours! We have to hurry!"

A group of medi-wizards and witches came sprinting towards them, eyes wide, several with their jaws hanging open. Their robes flapped behind them, and papers were slipping out of the clipboard that the wizard in the lead was holding, but none of them seemed to notice or care.

"You there!" Frank took charge, pointing at the medi-wizard closest to them. "We need you to help us get out of here, quickly! Our son-"

"We- we'll notify your son! Yes, uh, right now," the wizard stammered. "Connelly!" He gestured at a young man standing to his side. "Send an owl to these people's son! It's Neville, Neville Longbottom." The young man took off towards the ward's entrance.

"An owl!" Frank exclaimed. "Don't be ridiculous! He's barely a year old! He can't read a post!"

Frank paused, noticing the awkward glances being exchanged between the medi-wizards.

"What?" Alice questioned nervously, sensing that there was something the wizards and witches didn't want to tell them. "What is it?"

"Mrs. Longbottom… Mr. Longbottom…" a medi-witch spoke up timidly, "Your son, he's, well, he's seventeen years old… It's 1998… you've been here for sixteen years."

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The sun, slowly climbing higher into the sky, streamed through the shattered windows and destroyed roof of Hogwarts's Great Hall. Neville Longbottom lay on a bench, snoring loudly, the Sword of Gryffindor dangling limply from his right hand. In his exhaustion, he had been unable to summon the energy even to walk back to his own bed in the dormitory. The euphoric high that immediately followed the defeat of Voldemort had passed, and exhaustion had hit everyone left in the castle. All around Neville, other people were dozing as well, talking in hushed voices, or staring vacantly into space.

The hush in the room was broken as a tawny owl soared in, screeching, landed next to Neville with a grand flapping of wings, and extended his leg with an impatient hoot. Neville sat up slowly, blearily patted the owl on its' head, and took the letter. His hands clumsily broke the seal, and he pulled out the letter, stifling a yawn. His eyes scanned the letter once, twice, and three times, but Neville still seemed not to understand its contents.

"What is it, Neville?" Luna Lovegood had been sitting on the floor, idly fingering her Butterbeer cork necklace, and looked up, wide-eyed, when the owl arrived.

"My – my parents," Neville stammered, still looking shell-shocked. "It's from St. Mungo's. My mum and dad… they're – they're _back_."

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" _MUM!"_ The cry came from the boy running up the aisle towards them. _"DAD!"_

His parents stood to receive him, and Neville flew into his mother's outstretched arms. Mumbling unintelligible words into her hair, he clasped her tight, and reached out an arm for his father. Hot tears fell fast from each member of the little family, as they held each other, finally and truly reunited.

Neville's formidable grandmother stood a bit to the side, looking younger than she had in longer than anyone could remember. Having received an owl at the same time as Neville, she had Apparated directly to St. Mungo's and spent the time before Neville was able to arrive attempting to fill his parents in on the past sixteen years. The couple seemed unable to grasp any of the details except the ones that pertained to their child. Now, seeing the boy she had raised crying in the arms of the son and daughter-in-law that she had all but lost, the elderly Mrs. Longbottom was holding back tears of her own with much difficulty.

Alice's thoughts were jumbled together, but throughout all of them ran an overwhelming sense of joy and awe. _My baby… oh my baby boy… he's taller than me! Taller even than his father!... Thank Merlin that no fatal harm came to him over the years that we couldn't be there for him… A Gryffindor!... Voldemort, and Death Eaters, things no child should have to face… His hair is burnt; his sweater is covered in blood… He's been so brave… my brave baby… my baby is a_ man.


End file.
